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IMPORTANT
|  | Going Offense | Tired of Being Hunted, Hunter Biden Goes on the Attack Some might call it nominative determinism. After years of seemingly standing by as his name was dragged through mud bath upon mud bath, Biden’s lawyers signaled a change of tack Wednesday. A flurry of strongly worded letters sent on behalf of the president’s son marked “a new approach,” said one anonymous but knowledgeable source. “He is not going to sit quietly by as questionable characters continue to violate his rights and media organizations peddling in lies try to defame him.” It’s a calculated risk: By turning up the heat on those who leaked his private data, the Hunter may once again become the hunted. (Source: WaPo) |
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|  | Mass-ive | 1 Million Christians Attend Papal Mass in Congo Capital Kinshasa It was always going to be a spectacular affair. Congo’s home to the largest Catholic community in Africa and the popemobile hadn’t visited in 37 years. But would Pope Francis wade into the region’s complicated politics? Ever since the first missionaries plundered its rubber and ivory, the Catholic Church has been a key player in Congolese politics. His message was refreshingly forceful: “Hands off the Democratic Republic of the Congo! Hands off Africa! Stop choking Africa, it is not a mine to be stripped or a terrain to be plundered.” Francis’ visit to the eastern city of Goma’s been canceled for security reasons. (Source: BBC) |
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| | |  | ‘On Assignment From God’ | A Celebration of Tyre Nichols’ Life — and a Battle Hymn for Justice An ice storm would not stop Memphis from celebrating the life of the 29-year-old Black man who was beaten to death by police. But woven together with tearful reminiscences — “even in his demise, he was still polite” recalled his sister Keyana Dixon — was a commitment from every speaker that his death should spur reform. “His legacy will be one of equal justice,” said civil rights lawyer Ben Crump. “It will be the blueprint going forward.” Nichols’ mother, RowVaughn Wells, said she was sustained by the belief that her son had been “sent here on assignment from God” to change policing in America. (Source: NYT) |
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|  | Bad to Worse | Abandoned Stock Offering Sees Adani Losses Top $100 Billion Shares in India’s Adani Group sank further Thursday after the company abandoned its $2.5 billion stock offering, despite the offer being fully subscribed. Adani and its subsidiaries have been plummeting since a U.S.-based short-seller accused them of stock manipulation — a claim the group vehemently denies. Chairperson and founder Gautam Adani has slumped 13 places on Forbes’ rich list in a matter of days. And experts don’t see the slide stopping any time soon: “Unless Adani is able to regain the confidence of institutional investors, stocks will be in free-fall,” said Avinash Gorakshakar of Profitmart Securities. (Source: Reuters) |
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|  | Briefly | Here are some things you should know about today: Stronger together. As rumors of a massive new Russian offensive swirled, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and other EU leaders arrived in Kyiv to “show that the EU stands by Ukraine as firmly as ever.” (Source: DW) About time. Britain’s King Charles won’t feature on Australia’s new $5 notes. The notes will instead pay tribute to “the culture and history” of Indigenous Australians. Fancy that. (Source: BBC) Beach house blank. Turns out there is one place President Joe Biden didn’t stash classified papers — his Rehoboth Beach vacation home. For the first time in recent memory an FBI search of a senior U.S. official’s property came up empty. (Source: Politico) |
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INTRIGUING
| | | Faith, Hope & Charity | Inside the $500 Million ‘Mormon Ponzi Scheme’ Matthew Beasley, a Las Vegas lawyer who’d racked up millions of dollars in gambling debt, isn’t a Mormon. But most of the marketers he engaged to promote his alleged Ponzi scheme are, and so are their clients. The investment was pitched as a surefire way of earning massive returns by lending cash to slip-and-fall victims awaiting lawsuit payouts. But none of these “victims” even existed. Beasley, who’s in jail after an FBI raid on his home turned bloody, admits the whole thing was a scam. Everyone else involved in the scheme is pleading ignorance. Only Beasley’s been charged so far. (Source: WaPo) |
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| | | Sex Kills | Giving Up Sleep for Sex Takes Toll on Endangered Marsupials Research from Australia shows that male northern quolls — carnivorous marsupials resembling chubby squirrels — typically mate themselves to death within a year. Females last four times longer. The males “cover large distances to mate as often as possible and it seems that their drive is so strong that they forgo sleeping to spend more time searching for females,” said co-author Christofer Clemente. After fitting backpacks on wild quolls, researchers found some males walked over 6 miles a night in search of sex. “They become easy prey, are unable to avoid vehicle collisions, or simply die from exhaustion,” said lead author Joshua Gaschk. (Source: BBC) |
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| | | | | Grand Jury | Italian Court: Kids Can’t Be Forced to See Grandparents Don’t wanna see grandma? Try moving to Italy, where the highest court in the land is on your side. It’s the culmination of a lengthy legal battle that started when a pair of grandparents complained about being denied access to the little ones “due to the obstacles established by the parents.” While two lower courts ruled in the grandparents’ favor and ordered supervised visits, the supreme court of cassation took the children’s feelings into account and decreed that they could not be forced to see their “ascendants” — despite the many benefits of “a bond with the articulated line of generations.” (Source: The Guardian) |
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| | | New Chapter | A.I. Discovers Unknown Play by 17th Century Spanish Bard Artificial intelligence saved years — or even decades — of human effort by transcribing 1,300 anonymous manuscripts held in Spain’s National Library archives. Then it tried to work out who’d written the texts by analyzing word choices. One play, La Francesca Laura (The Frenchwoman Laura), returned an unequivocal match with Félix Lope de Vega, one of the most prominent playwrights of the Spanish Golden Age. Its word choices were “closely aligned with Lope’s, and not with those of the other 350 playwrights who were part of the experiment.” The “remarkable” play, written shortly before Lope’s death in 1635, will be published soon. (Source: CNN) |
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| | | Over and Out | 23 Seasons Later, Tom Brady Retires ‘for Good’ “I’ll get to the point right away,” the seven-time Super Bowl champion said in a video post. “I’m retiring for good. I know the process was a pretty big deal last time. So, when I woke up this morning, I figured I’d just press record and let you guys know first.” 2022 was Brady’s worst professional season ever, and it saw the collapse of his marriage to Gisele Bündchen. The 45-year-old holds every major NFL passing record and is widely regarded as the GOAT: Patrick Mahomes, Michael Phelps and Alex Rodriguez all responded to the news with goat emojis. (Sources: Fox News, Daily Mail) |
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